BLOG: It's Carnaval!

IT'S 11.20 pm by the time William Wallace (Braveheart) and I reach the Casa Viejito off licence at the Botanico Gardens. Emerging from the shop is a seven foot transvestite in a bridal gown clutching a bottle of Guajara rum and a large bottle of coke. Around the corner, Minnie Mouse and half a dozen Smurfs are downing six packs and dancing to the car radio.

IT'S 11.20 pm by the time William Wallace (Braveheart) and I reach the Casa Viejito off licence at the Botanico Gardens. Emerging from the shop is a seven foot transvestite in a bridal gown clutching a bottle of Guajara rum and a large bottle of coke.

Around the corner, Minnie Mouse and half a dozen Smurfs are downing six packs and dancing to the car radio.

Outside Caja Canarias bank there’s a pair of comedy breasts in the back window of a car full of male nuns. They toot the horn and whistle out to Jack (aka Braveheart) and me, the camaraderie of masqueraders.

Jack raises his plastic axe high into the air and shouts “FREEDOM!”

The nuns cheer and raise their fists in response.

“Should that have been Libertad?” Jack asks me, not a question I suspect the real William Wallace ever had to consider.

We reach Plaza Charco around a quarter past midnight. There are thousands of people in fancy dress; costumes are witty, authentic, imaginative, professional and downright outrageous, laughing in the face of political correctness.

But something’s missing.

In front of the stage hundreds are milling, looking towards the band who are standing around chatting, seemingly oblivious to the huge and growing crowd.

In Calle Perdomo the multitudes are gathering at the line of drinks kiosks, there’s an audible air of expectation and a buzz, but the rhythms are conspicuous by their absence.

Just the other side of a screened off area alongside the ‘disco’ zone, 3,700 people are watching the election of the 2009 Puerto de la Cruz Carnaval Queen and until the show is over, no music is allowed lest it interferes with the enjoyment.

It’s 1.10 am and Braveheart and I are taking the opportunity to have a ten minute sit down on a bench in the Plaza when an explosion splits the sky.

“That’s it!” I say, “She’s been elected.”

We head towards the harbour beneath a canopy of rainbow gunpowder; Tenerife’s version of the white smoke when a decision has been reached. In an instant, everything has changed, it’s as if someone pressed ‘go’ on the remote.

On stage the 14 piece Latino Band gets into its first hip-swaying, foot tapping number and the dance floor erupts into a frenzy of salsa and merengue. In Calle Perdomo the bass beat kicks in and rattles our bones.

At the entrance to the disco zone a go-go dancer atop a table begins to gyrate to the ear-splitting dance music while at her feet goblins, witches, zombies, pirates, transvestites and gangsters leap into life. Braveheart and Cleopatra join them.